


the source

by TheoMiller



Category: Fantastic Four (2015)
Genre: Gen, Non-Human Narrator, Planet Zero, Sentient Planets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:03:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5570287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zero is alive. Zero is also sentient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the source

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Summary: the one where I'm going to give people feels about a damn planet.
> 
> This is from the point of view of the planet. I'm serious, the planet is going to be narrating, please hold all questions 'til the end, the planet is new to funny little human things and doesn't know how to talk sensibly yet. N.B.: thoughts are relayed by electrical impulses and emotions are relayed by chemical messengers.

It has existed for as long as it has existed, without need of measurements of increments of time. Time, for it, is divided into sections. Before. After the Doorway Opened. After the New Particles. After the New Doorway. And now, with the children. It has no need of a name, but it gets one.

 _Istočnik_ , the child calls it, and also _Majka_. The child differentiates between the Majka and the Istočnik, the being and the location that the being embodies. It is a strange distinction.

The particles of Istočnik buzz excitedly; this is the child whose particles were introduced when Before ended and after the Doorway Opened. During this time, these particles became familiar to Majka and Istočnik both, and the loss was felt in the quiet at the end of the time of New Particles, a period of silence before the New Doorway.

"Majka," the child says, without breath. The other children breathe in their own istočniks, with more vibrations. But this child, the first child, is reverent, and speaks the Majka's name aloud.

Majka had now concept of names, Before. Now it had two, and it loved them.

The children scatter, disrupting particles of Majka and Istočnik alike. They place an intrusion into Istočnik, and Majka urges Istočnik to rise and meet it, curious. Organic. It is a porous and fibrous organic material, fibers embedded in a matrix, but it is strange and foreign and covered in some thin inorganic shell. Majka sends Istočnik's particles further, and finds a vascular structure.

Whatever the source of these children, they are dependent upon vascular structures, it seems; their little istočniks are modeled after them.

Istočnik is unstable, and the children are unprepared. Majka feels its first child's fear and answers it; Istočnik rises to take the child, fusing its primitive inorganic istočnik into a more suitable shape, and bringing it lower, closer to the core of Istočnik where Majka can feel more easily.

The communication of these children appears based in vibration; Majka is not so well versed in it, and bypasses the little units of conversion in order to listen to the chemicals and electricity directly.

 _Control_ , says the First Child's electricity, alongside the chemicals.

Majka grants its child its wish.

The Second Child of Majka is not there, and Majka yearns for what Istočnik cannot find; but the Third Child is, and Majka listens.

The inorganic material is unnecessary. Istočnik strips it away, and there is combustion. The Third Child's electricity and chemicals are speaking different words. _Painpainpainpain_ , the chemicals says, _damage, fix the damage, damage must be stopped and repaired_. But the electricity yearns for something else, for movement with restriction.

Majka knows the combustion of the Third Child is terribly inefficient and also dangerous; it will not bring the Third Child freedom from pain or limitation. This must be fixed, and Istočnik obeys, changes the source particles.

All of these children require changes to their source particles. It is no matter. Majka will fix them.

The Fourth Child appears well; the Fifth Child is screaming as it comes into contact with Istočnik. Majka reaches out; the Fifth Child is rather like Majka, a creator-protector, and Majka is earnest to ease this burden of creation and protection in equal measure.

The Fifth Child's electricity is screaming for the Fourth Child, _protectprotectprotect_ , but its chemicals are fighting for their host: _protect host_.

The external particles seem weak, the vascular system ill-suited to protecting the child or its fellows. But the little inorganic proto-istočnik is good, a barrier between the internal particles and the cold, unfeeling source from which the children came.

There is an explosion; the Doorway opens. The Second Child is there, full of fear, and Majka probes around in search of why; it finds the Fourth Child. Returning to their source has damaged the other children. Majka is pleased that the First Child is safe within Istočnik's depths.

Fourth Child's electricity sparks, and then speaks. It is a name, repeating, an urgent wanting: _Ben_. This is the Fifth Child. The Fourth Child wants this Ben, but its poor, broken istočnik is unable to reach. The source material must be updated.

In updating it, Majka finds the chemicals, concentrating on one part of its little istočnik. Majka, too, turns its attentions towards this part. There are fragments here, each containing pieces of a complex matrix incorporating an inorganic molecule into organic molecules. They all fit together, but this is causing the chemicals to scream _painpainpain_ , and this is unacceptable.

The pain is removed. All matching matrices are updated to react similarly under high-pressure conditions.

The Second Child is slipping away, electricity quieting. Majka listens closely: this child does not want to be noticed, wishes to escape the limitations of being bound to the children's limited visible spectrum, and the protect-create urge is there. The Second Child is also like Majka. It wishes for protection for itself and those around it. Protection from harmful vibrations and contact and the strange, permeant radiation.

Majka sends Istočnik to fix this. It is the last act; the doorway is closing, and Majka must withdraw Istočnik before it completes, or lose itself to the silent source of the children.

Its children are fixed. This is Majka's dearest wish, and it has been met.

The First Child remains, and as Majka grieves the loss of the other children to their uncaring source, the First Child begins to exhibit electrical pulses once more.

 _Majka_ , says the First Child, with wonder.

 _Child_ , says Majka.

The First Child, at least, has left its source.

Majka has no concept of forever. If it were to, it would wish that the First Child would forget its source and stay here, safe within Istočnik's cradle, _forever_.

In time, the First Child will come to wish that too.

**Author's Note:**

> "Istočnik" is Bosnian for source, and refers to the planet; "Majka" is Serbian and Croation for mother, and refers to the sentient being that *is* the planet. The planet thinks that its children also have istočniks, but theirs are squishy and do silly things like catch on fire or shatter bones, which is clearly just an error that needs to be fixed. Also its children do even sillier things like add extra, inorganic proto-istočniks to themselves. Like protective environment suits.


End file.
